Okay. Calendar number 2721, 1641 Jackson Street. The attorney is Jack Thurman.
Mr. Fuhrman?
Vice Chair, we have David Orfanides with his hand up.
Is he here for 1641 Jackson?
You can promote him.
He's been promoted to panelists.
Mr. Orfanides?
Yes, I am.
here hi name and address on the record please and spell your last name
certainly david orphanetes from orphanetes in toner to penn center 1500 john f kennedy
boulevard suite 800 philadelphia pennsylvania 19102 and i'm uh here this afternoon on behalf
of the owner of the subject property b and z philly llc um is that 1641 jackson street
yes it is okay do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing about the truth
i do do you also agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy
i do and i do and i do stage your lucky day no i do yes go play the lottery right
have you emailed the exhibit packet with the required documents consisting of proof of
ownership tax compliance refusal referral photos under plans of the property five days in advance
of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter? Yes, yes, and yes. Wow.
Yeah, lots of yeses today, and I just, and I want to have that reciprocated, please, you know,
if you don't mind, so. I don't mind. I don't. It's up to Frank. Yes, I do. I'm sorry. Before you begin,
if I could interrupt briefly, Mr. Orphanides, if you would, please just spell your name for
the record please sure i apologize uh o-r-p-h-a-n-i-d-e-s that's my last name first name
david d-a-b-i-d thank you kindly and thank you tanya and you may proceed okay and just so you
know jack firman whose name was mentioned is a new attorney with our firm and he's listening in right
now um just to see how things are are done so great i would ask you to welcome him and he will
at some point be peering before you. Well, we welcome him. All right. Thank you very much.
I appreciate it. Sure. So again, I'm here on behalf of BNZ Philly LLC. I would ask that my
that my client, Brandon John, be
that my client um uh brandon john uh be uh also um unmuted uh just so that it's he can at some
point adopt my statements or maybe testifying in this matter is he do you see him there
john brandon it's actually brandon john okay
i'm not sure all right well i'll have somebody from my office so i believe yes i'm here i'm here
there you go we got them okay all right just want to make sure you're there brandon
um so uh the subject property 1641 uh jackson street uh let if i can share my screen uh i'd
appreciate that i can go through that let me know if you can see it
yes we have it okay great okay super
and um i'm going to uh take a take a cue from mr uh mr ward and instead of having uh i'll have
the picture of the property in question in my background so this this this presentation is
brought to you by my client and his property that is the subject of this uh presentation so
anyway i thought it was a nice little thing so you can see what we're talking about here so the
property 1641 Jackson Street is a corner property. It's located on the northeast corner of Jackson
and 17th Street. It is zoned for residential use. There is a, as you can see from the notice of
refusal, that the application was originally for three-family dwelling. There is an existing
a residential dwelling unit, a two-bedroom unit on the second floor, and there's a vacant non-residential
space on the ground floor. That space has been vacant for some time. It was last permitted and
approved as a doctor's office. You could see that in the zoning archives for the subject property
at tab 12, if you care to take a look. But the ground floor has been vacant for some time.
We have provided a number of photographs, zoning archives, real estate records that were pulled by my client.
He's also a real estate agent that show that, number one, there's a considerable amount of vacancies of corner properties that have ground floor commercial in the area.
They've remained vacant for a considerable period of time on the market, basically difficulty selling and or leasing them.
In addition, if we go through, when I'll go through the photographs, if you care to see them, you'll see that a number, a large number of the corner properties along Jackson Street from, let's say, Broad Street West, 15th Street West, down to Pass Young Avenue and 18th Street have been, have had their ground floors converted to residential use.
There are some commercial corner commercials. A lot of them are little grocery stores.
There seems to be a bit of a proliferation of those, but there are also a number of vacancies.
Given that, given the history of vacancy here, vacancies on the street within blocks of either direction,
we feel that there is a hardship to continue to utilize the property as it is presently zoned at the ground floor, which is non-residential.
We also, and my client can testify if you'd like, it's a hardship to convert this whole property to a single family dwelling, which is what is permitted in the underlying RSA 5 zoning district.
In addition, my client provided me with records, which I also included in my exhibit book that speaks to the issue of converting this to a single family dwelling and to either sell or rent that.
and what the sales or rentals would be as opposed, and you can testify as opposed to the cost to
convert it. You'll see from the photographs that I can show you or the photographs that are attached
to my exhibit book, there's basically an open ground floor plan at the ground floor. The
entrance to the ground floor unit is through the corner of the building, the doorway at the corner
fronting on Jackson Street. The entrance to the second floor residential is along South 17th
Street. There's also interior steps at the ground floor to the cellar, as well as a bill code door
on South 17th Street to get to the cellar. My client presented this matter to the coordinating
My client presented this matter to the Coordinating RCO, which is a Broad Street West Civic Association, presented the three-family dwelling.
RCO, which is a broad...
There was initially a rejection of that by the community group.
That was for two one-bedroom units at the ground floor.
And here was the original proposal.
Again, this is of the ground floor, the entrance off the corner.
You can see where my – I'm going to switch this over to a hand so you can see a little better.
here at the corner. And it was a two-bedroom or two unit, one bedrooms each. We revised the
proposal after speaking with the councilman's office and communicating between me and the
client, the client and I, to a single two-bedroom unit at the ground floor. Here are the revised
plans at tab three. You can see right here. And I presented that along with my client to the
coordinating RCO actually in person. And we have a letter at tab two that has their letter of March
23, 2021, indicating they're not in opposition. There were vote by six board members that were
present, all voted, non-opposition. Again, I've shown you the floor plan to tab six again. I don't
know that I need to get into the details, but it is there for your review. Again, the real estate
records that confirm and document these statements I've made. These were records that were pulled by
my client, as you can see up here. And that document confirmed the hardship arguments or
the hardship statements that I've made regarding the existing vacancies in the neighborhood of
commercial spaces, the difficulties in leasing or selling them, and then the problem in converting
this completely to a single family for either rent or for sale, but mostly this is a rental
property. Again, here are all the zoning archives at tab seven of all the properties, corner
properties within a couple blocks of the subject property that I referenced, and photographs are
tabby which go through and show those other properties and how many of them have been
converted so many of them have been converted to ground floor residential some of them more than
one unit and many of these corners even if they have commercial at the ground floor have more
than one residential unit in them again these will be just a total of two residential dwelling units
two two-bedroom residential dwelling units i do have current interior photographs this is the
ground floor as you can see uh you know it's basically a vanilla box at this point ready for
fit out that's been ready for fit out by commercial tenant or a residential or for the residential
conversion and again my client has not been able to lease it as a commercial space you'll see there
is an adjacent property to the north of us that uh has also been on the market for some time for
rental. And that property has also not been rented. And here's a property, there's an alley
to the north of us and this property, a budding property to the north of us. That's a commercial
space that has been not been, has been vacant for some time. I believe the statement from my client
is that it was listed in December of 2019, and it's still vacant. It's about 3,000 square feet.
So there's a history in close proximity to this property of commercial not being able to be sold
or rented. So aerials are at tab 10 that show our property. Here you go. This north is actually to
the left, south is to the right, and here we are at the corner, and you've got Pasayunk Avenue right
here. You know, that's an avenue commercial corridor where you'll see most of the commercial
uses in the area. Again, zoning map for the property, RSC5 zoning archives for the property,
going back to the, there's something going back in the 50s showing the mixed commercial residential
use. From an administrative standpoint, here's our tax clearance at tab 14, the posting of our
notices for today's hearing along with the notice of refusal on both the Jackson Street and South
17th Street facades. Copy of the 14303 notice. First of all, it does the email from the Planning
commission designating broad street west civic association as a coordinating rco
then the uh the notice that we sent out by first class certified mail of the meeting that
Then the notice that we sent out by first-class certified mail of the meeting that we had on
March 23rd, the in-person meeting we had with the coordinating RCO meeting, copy of the notice of
refusal, instructions on how to appeal, and the list of addresses that we received from the link
from the Planning Commission and our certificate of first-class mailing. You can see there were
50, there were 172 properties that were mailed. With that, again, I can get into the details of
the floor plans. I can get into a little more details in terms of the real estate aspect,
the hardship aspect. I can have my client make statements or testify, but at this point,
with the community's lack of opposition,
with their non-opposition to the project.
And I'm hoping or believe somebody is here.
Franz might be here from Councilman Johnson's office.
I did speak with him before today's hearing
regarding their position in a matter of peace here.
Obviously, he can speak for himself,
but I understand their position to be
in keeping with the community group's position,
which would be one of the position.
So unless there are any other questions,
I know you're running a little bit behind here.
So if there aren't any questions, I would just rest and just reserve the right to abut any statements that may be made by others.
And I would ask my client, again, to identify himself and be sworn in so that he may adopt my statements.
Hello?
Hi. Please identify yourself in the record. Spell your full name.
brandon mr brandon you can unmute yourself and speak
hi can you hear me now yes yes my name is brandon john b-r-a-n-n-o-n and the last name is john j-o-h-n
where's firman come from no so jack firman is a new attorney with our firm oh you did say that
earlier i apologize you're right i'm sorry i mean he's he's now right he's now running the firm i
now work for him so good for you he's in charge so good for you i apologize mr toner may not be
aware of that yet but there you go you did say that earlier i apologize uh sir do you swear
in a firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do thank you uh granted
did you hear the statements that i made to the board yes and are they true and accurate to the
best of your knowledge? Yes. And would you adopt them as your own? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Any
questions from the board? No. Anyone else like to testify in this case? If so, please raise your
hand. There is a France Pierre. Mr. Pierre, you can unmute yourself and speak. Good afternoon,
mr pierre please identify yourself and i'll swear you in yes good afternoon mr chairman and fellow
board members this is france pierre council member johnson's office uh legislative assistant that's
f-r-a-n-t-z last name p-i-e-r-r-e you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
but the truth i certainly do thank you please proceed yes uh currently uh the council member's
office will be joining the community in its non-opposition to the appeal.
Thank you.
Anyone else, anyone else to testify?
There are no heads at this time, chair.
Thank you.
Planning commission.
Ron Bednar city planning properties indicated for residential use on the
city plan based on the revised plans.
we recommend that the requested variants be granted thank you MI 2020-002-721-1641
Jackson Street my vote is yes with the proviso maximum two residential units
my vote is yes with proviso yes with proviso yes with proviso
so thank you thank you very much everybody have a great day you too david calendar number three
two five eight 2137 east cumberland street
there are no exhibits with this and it's the first listing anyone here for 2137 east cumberland
Chair, we did have an email from Councilman School's office saying that they hadn't received an RCO letter, so they were taking no position.
chair we did have an email from um councilman school's office saying that
Okay, so MI2020-0032582137 East Cumberland Street.
It will be continued.
Members of the board, this is Leo Moldau.
I'm here.
That's what I was trying to tell you, Chair.
I just promoted the panelists.
Sorry, I couldn't do anything until I got promoted. I was raising my hand frantically.
I do have my packet that was submitted. We have a community meeting tonight, so this is a here and hold request.
Okay, can you put your name and address on the record?
Mr. Wollin-Hill, when did you submit the packet?
Today?
No, it was previously submitted.
Okay, it may have gone to my other email address.
I will verify that. I do have it here.
it's going to be hearing hold irrespective um if you actually if you haven't had the community
meeting yet it would probably be better to continue this because we would only have to
schedule a second hearing where the community would have an opportunity to come in and testify
after the meeting okay like that's right anyway yep all right i just heard some background noise
i'm sorry so the board wishes to continue this and irrespective yes because you're going to have
to have a hearing anyway the community will have to have the opportunity to weigh in understood
this just for the board's notifications for the legalization of in the pre-existing all
street parking space we received the refuse only because we had to fix an old shed and put a new
open space there instead all right but again that's uh we're going to have to continue this
I understand members of the board. Thank you. So MI 2020-003258-2137 East Cumberland Street is
continued. Calendar number 1381-214 South 49th Street. The attorney is Alan Nockamson.
Chair, Alan Nockamson has been promoted to panelists. Thank you.
Mr. Nockamson, can you please put your name and address on the record and spell your last name?
Yes. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the board.
My name is Alan Nockamson of Nockamson PC, A-L-A-N, Nockamson, N-O-C-H-U-M-S-O-N, 123 South Broad Street, Suite 1600, Philadelphia PA, 19109.
Thank you. Do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Do you also agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?